WSJ EIC Tucker freaking out staffers with her changes

Shawn McCreesh of New York magazine writes about how Wall Street Journal editor in chief Emma Tucker has been replacing top editors, including at WSJ. magazine.

McCreesh writes, “As I told Tucker, many other people across her newsroom are starting to feel freaked out, not just by the volume of the layoffs but by the way in which they’ve been conducted. Last month, after she pulled Beckett, the Washington bureau chief who is Scottish — reporters have been darkly joking that ‘he’s from the empire, but not the right part’ — the bureau was thrown into chaos just as the news cycle in Washington hit warp speed, what with the Speaker catastrophe, a new war, and the start of the presidential campaign. People down there are wondering why Tucker would do that if she didn’t have a replacement lined up (there still hasn’t been one named; Beckett remains at the Journal in a new role focused on securing the release of reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained by the Russians). ‘There will be a replacement!’ Tucker protested. ‘We just, you know, we have to do a process, it’s not like I’m not going to have a D.C. bureau chief.’ She continued, ‘If I just came in and did nothing, I wouldn’t be doing my job. So, you know, I set out very clearly where I want the Journal to head, but in order to get there, I’m going to have to make changes along the way. And what’s really satisfying for me is that the people who get it are really onboard with it, and there’s a lot of energy and excitement about where we’re headed, and the realization that we can’t just carry on doing things the way they’ve always been done.'”

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